


Colours of the Land

by subito



Category: Medieval Manuscript Illustrations
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subito/pseuds/subito
Summary: Gilbert is on a quest. What he finds is more than he could ever have expected.





	Colours of the Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prinzenhasserin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prinzenhasserin/gifts).



A loud thump jerks Gilbert awake. He is leaning against the wall by the front door, his only support a rotting stick of dry hazel. The door’s wood doesn’t look much better: full of holes big enough to easily fit a finger through and worn thin from decades of being exposed to the elements. The only difference is the sea of tiny mushrooms that raise their heads just above the surface in some places. Whatever just caused the dull sound has a good chance of breaking down the door with minimal effort.

Gilbert runs a hand over his face and dares himself to open his eyes. He’d seen a shadow in the garden earlier when he’d woken up in the middle of the night. He had crouched down immediately and, on his knees, seen the shadow approach. It had moved slowly from the end of the garden towards the door. There hadn’t been any sort of distinguishable form, at least no form Gilbert had recognised. As he had watched the shadow, he’d had difficulty telling it apart from all the other shadows outside. The waxing gibbous moon stands low in the sky, creating and distorting all shapes and sizes and points of orientation.

Now, the shadow from the garden is waiting for Gilbert behind the door and he has to acknowledge that it must have a corporal form. That knowledge doesn’t fill him with confidence. He closes his eyes again and mentally kicks himself for ending up in this situation in the first place. He is not a real knight like the others. And for a moment he wishes he had just packed his small bag and returned home after they had all been separated. 

He is three kingdoms away from home, a place no one had resettled in after a war that had happened a long time ago. The details of it are hazy, the stories tall and Gilbert suspects people are glad they have forgotten all about it.

The land Gilbert had found himself in after weeks of travel is almost complete marsh, wet and tricky to navigate alone, and the thick fogs cling to everything that sticks out of the ground. The vegetation is unexciting. There is a limited variation on green and brown hues, dyeing the waters a murky colour that gets soaked up into the sky. A light green moss sometimes covers a few lonely stones, the half-buried witnesses of what once existed here and the earth’s attempt to inject some live back into the landscape that lies so neglected. 

That feeling of abandonment is something Gilbert finds himself relating to. It’s a feeling he had carried with him for many years until the day the monks had knocked on his father’s door. His father had only been trying to do the best thing for his son and their family of four. Giving Gilbert, his youngest, to the monks had seemed the obvious choice, although one Gilbert had had no say in, since Gilbert had shown interest in drawing and gardening and developed a strong sense for rituals. 

The monks, however, had only needed a few minutes to decide that this child’s heart before them did not have a place in it for their God. Gilbert didn’t have to tell them about how the God he had talked to in prayer every day had only ever answered with a silence that suffocated Gilbert’s family, bringing death after death after death through sickness and months in which no one had been able to get warm. The monks had taken Thomas instead then and it was almost enough for Gilbert to think there might be something to it after all. 

He is over that feeling now, mostly. At least it hadn’t come back when he had woken up a few mornings ago to find all the other men gone. Their company had been trapped in a heavy fog a few days before that and people had started to get lost. Then he had woken up and no one at all had been with him anymore. 

He doesn’t mourn them, those men wearing their armour with pride and hungry for battle. He doesn’t know if they had left him behind on purpose or if it really had been the bad weather. But he knows they had made fun of him and he knows it isn’t his fault he isn’t as noble as they are. It isn’t his fault he had never been allowed to choose his own quest. It isn’t his fault he had ended up a faux-knight amongst a dozen real ones. Of this Gilbert reminds himself every day. Because, most of all, it isn’t his fault he fell in love.

Were Tilly in his place right now, Gilbert is sure she would just open the door and confront whatever stood in front of it. She is the most fearless person he has ever met. Tilly also doesn’t have much use for those forced divisions of society and status her father had seems to champion. She isn’t the one responsible for him going away with little to no training. It had been her father insisting Gilbert prove himself worthy of his only daughter. Because even though most of those around them call Mechthild “difficult”, Tilly’s father calls her “extraordinary” – and that is something Gilbert wholeheartedly agrees with. 

The influence of Tilly’s father had gotten Gilbert with a company of real knights, all trained since their childhood, all ready to fight and eager to prove themselves. They had been on their way to a long-lasting battle the king was fighting in a strip of land Gilbert had never heard of. He himself was only supposed to tag along until he spotted something Tilly’s father might find “awe-inspiring”, as he put it. Gilbert had no idea what that could be, but he had sworn to himself he would try. 

Whatever is waiting for him on the other side of the door qualifies so far, Gilbert reasons. But so do many of the things he had experienced on his way. After he had realised that the knights weren’t around anymore or waiting for him, he had retraced his steps to the part of the land were, a few hours before night-time, they had passed what had seemed to be an old wooden cabin in the distance. It had seemed like his best option for shelter, even though Gilbert knew those images could not always be trusted. 

He and the others had seen and heard many strange things on the company’s way through the marsh: something crying out at them that sounded like a wounded crow, although no black bird had been seen by anyone during all the weeks of wandering; someone whispering, without there being any other people or even large trees around; a boat on dry land, almost flickering despite the lack of sunlight. All of these had turned out to be nothing but layer upon layer of water and air. 

Gilbert feels he can read those different layers by now. He takes a deep breath and let’s himself be filled from the inside – his lungs, his blood, his mind - until he feels ready to step away from the wall and stand up straight. He can sense _something_ on the other side - slipping way. 

Soft light is seeping through the cracks in the door and Gilbert is aware of the way his heart is hammering in his chest. The night is over. His hand on the stick loosens and Gilbert finally dares to peek through one of the holes. He is not surprised to find there is nothing to be seen. There is a second in which he thinks he might be dreaming after all. But then he goes back to bed and, instead of waking up, falls asleep. 

When he awakes in the afternoon, Gilbert looks closely around the garden for the first time. Nothing of note is growing there. Some of the leaves, however, show curious patterns. They don’t seem to occur naturally, the leaves missing circular pieces all around their edges, and Gilbert collects a few to take with him. They will make for a good drawing exercise and he hopes he can find something to press them with for preservation before they start to crumble. 

Looking at the house, the leaves are not the only thing in danger of crumbling away. The walls of the wooden cabin are brittle, made of cracks more than anything, and Gilbert gets the feeling everything is only being held together by the fog. During his first night, he could feel it seeping into every little fold of his body, leaving tiny cavities when it ebbed away. He imagines something similar happening to the wood and stone: the fog engulfing them, expanding, demanding space - and then leaving. It strains and splits, opens everything up even more, leaves a yearning of wanting to be filled again. 

His plan for the coming night is to listen and observe. 

There are sounds so strange, Gilbert has a hard time trying to imagine what they could be. It’s a sort of rasping sound coming from the end of the garden. There is only a little bit of wind to carry it towards him, but it is as loud as if it came from the end of the old bed. There is also a quiet crackling sound from the walls around him. He gets up and looks out of the window, finding the garden empty save for the stars.

The fog only descends in the early hours of morning right before dawn, pouring out over the flat land in a cloudy sea. The sky is still clear at this time of night and the moon is almost full. It illuminates the garden with its bright light and Gilbert notices long, glistening lines all around the cabin. They are silvery traces, sparkling when the moonlight hits them just right, resembling a portion of the brilliant constellations above. They vanish right before his eyes once the sun rises and a sense of bereavement laces his dreams.

The next night, Gilbert listens to the house sing again and waits for the strange sounds from the garden. He cannot say why his heart responds calmly, why the light tremor in his hand isn’t there anymore, even when he isn’t holding his only weapon for support. He doesn’t just stand by the window this night. This night, he goes out into the garden, settling on two tiny stones that flank what once used to be a cabbage patch. 

The night had never seemed quiet to Gilbert. As long as he can remember, the night had sounded like knights: full of rustling and snoring and sing-songy confessions forgotten in the morning. But now Gilbert is witnessing something close to the absence of sound. He is aware of a sort of low humming of the earth beneath him. He feels like the first day he opened himself up to the unfamiliar landscape, his senses heightened. The humming vibrates his bones and echoes inside him, somewhere deep and primal. 

He turns his head and comes face to face with a creature unlike any he has ever seen before.

It does and doesn’t have the shape of the shadow. Smooth lines spiral together into the part farthest away from Gilbert. It looks hard and sturdy there, like armour, and contrasts with the soft and wobbly extensions that are right in front of Gilbert’s face. He thinks of it as a neck and the four little protruding bits on top he thinks of as eyes. As he is thinking this, the upper two extend and transform into translucent tentacles. 

To his own surprise Gilbert sits still and doesn’t shy away when the two lower tentacles also extend until they almost touch his skin. He thinks he can hear someone telling him not to be afraid and there is some sort of mouth he can make out, but it isn’t moving. What he thinks of as the creature’s mouth remains shut and his ears only detect a faint creak from the walls of the cabin. 

The lower tentacles move in different directions as if taken by a gentle breeze. They still don’t touch Gilbert’s skin. He detects a little prickling sensation all the same, as if he is being measured, evaluated - and for some reason Gilbert does not want to disappoint. 

When the creature seems satisfied, it backs off by gliding backwards with an ease Gilbert only knows from playing on the frozen lakes when he was younger. He stares in wonder and feels compelled to tell the creature his name. 

“I’m Gilbert,” he blurts out and it sounds much louder than he intended.

The creature moves its upper tentacles and Gilbert gets the impression it is bemused in a way. 

“Gilbert,” he hears inside his head and his eyes widen. “You are human.” It is a statement and all Gilbert can manage is to nod. 

“I- I am.” Gilbert says with a lack of confidence that stems from the realisation that he has never questioned his being human before now. 

Gilbert is looking at the creature and tries to decide which of his many questions he should ask first. The one that pushes to the forefront of his mind is “What are you?” 

At this, all four of the creature’s tentacles move a bit. 

“I am what your ancestors called a snail,” comes the response. “My name is Ygrom.”

Gilbert smiles to himself. He doesn’t care if this is really happening or if he is going mad. He is filled with a sense of wonder he doesn’t want to lose. 

He can hear Ygrom inside his head and, apparently, it also works the other way around. In the next hour Gilbert hears about Ygrom’s ancestors and that he is the last one of their line. Ygrom’s voice inside Gilbert’s head is the calm and experienced voice of someone who has told this story many times before. Still, there is no boredom in between the words, no tiredness. 

When the fog starts to web its way through the grass, Ygrom excuses himself. 

“We are creatures of the night.” 

He glides back towards the end of the garden, towards a lingering pocket of fog and the traces of silver vanish once again with the rising sun. 

The next night turns into another and they start a ritual of meeting by the moss-covered stone next to the patch Gilbert has started to transform by day into something resembling a vegetable garden again.

During this time, Gilbert learns about Ygrom’s family. They are a line of snails whose sole purpose had been the defence of their population. The enemy hadn’t been other snails or creatures Gilbert had never heard of; the enemy had been someone Gilbert knew all too well by now: humans. And not any humans: knights. It was a revelation that both surprised and didn’t surprise him at all. 

“A few singular fights turned into a month of war,” Ygrom tells Gilbert. “They were coming for our land, for our lettuce – and to, ultimately, prove their valour.”

Gilbert glances at the swirl design on which the light is reflected back to the moon. He can see some shallow lines crossing the pattern here or there. 

“The marks you see are nothing serious. I was too young to fight. Our shells are harder than a human lance; the only way to wound us is to catch us outside of it.” Ygrom glides back slowly, making sure Gilbert is focused. He then retracts inside his shell in the fraction of a second. 

Gilbert’s mouth hangs open and it takes him a moment to take in what he has just seen. 

“You can touch it,” Ygrom tells him. Gilbert touches the smooth swirl with its nicely rounded curve, cool and hard in a way that make the breast plates of the knights he has known seem soft and easy to dent.

Ygrom also tells him that when the war had been at its worst, it had actually been Ygrom’s father who’d managed to organise talks that brought an end to the, by then, meaningless fights.[1]

The land had been destroyed and the fearless knights had grown timid. So much so it had often taken more than one knight to even harm the average battle snail. 

Recognising the losses and wanting to save face, the queen at the time had relinquished the land to the snails for as long as Ygrom’s ancestors’ line would last. Still, most of them had moved on to greener pastures, as it were, as few had wanted to live in a desolated land heavy with blood and grief. Ygrom’s father and his family had stayed, and now Ygrom is the only one left. 

As the weeks go by, Gilbert almost forgets about Tilly’s father’s quest. He does still think about Tilly every day, but he is so caught up in Ygrom’s story he feels no pressure to move on and return home. Only when Ygrom asks Gilbert what brings him to this cabin he tells his story and wonders how he will ever fulfil the quest and forge a live together with Tilly. No one has come back for him and he has no idea where to go. 

When Ygrom hears this, Gilbert can tell how moved his new friend is by this. 

“I want to do what I can to help you,” Ygrom says “but I am old and bound by duty to watch over this land.”

Gilbert understands. His head hangs a bit lower, but he understands.

“It is my responsibility to keep my family’s memory alive,” Ygrom continues. “Maybe I can suggest a trade?”

Gilbert lifts his head. 

“There is a map in that cabin and I can show you how to read it. It will get you home.”

“What do you want in return?” Gilbert asks. He isn’t suspicious, just curious about what he could possibly have to offer an old and wondrous snail. 

“As I said, it is my duty to make sure people remember. I have seen your drawing skills, Gilbert.” Ygrom’s tentacles sort of point and Gilbert follows the motion towards the pile of small boards he doodles on during the days. 

“I will tell you the all the stories about my ancestors and how bravely they fought. You will draw them and take all of it back with you.”

Gilbert is stunned - and quickly agrees. 

During the next month Gilbert listens at night at draws at day. 

Along with the map, Ygrom points Gilbert in the direction of a stack of parchments. They also find a few tools inside some creaky drawers and Gilbert starts mixing colours with ease. It’s a process he had perfected since he was old enough to carry stones around, grinding up everything from grass to leaves to petals and whatever else the meadow behind their house had offered. 

He studies Ygrom’s shifting tones according to which part of the body Gilbert is able to see and asks for feedback on his observations. He learns how the darkish brown of snail shells may turn lighter towards the bottom; how some shells appear as negatives of others; how some have freckles and some stripes; how, despite and because of that, snails are really not that different from humans.

Ygrom does his best to advise on the more unfamiliar plants that produce most of the colours. Some algae can be used for the backgrounds, rich and undefined; dried moss for highlights; finely-chopped bark for long-dead trees and vanishing light. 

The more Gilbert infuses the parchment with the tinctures, the more he feels them flowing in and out of himself, too. It is close to the feeling he’d had when he’d first come to this land: the breathing in and being filled, the fog descending and simultaneously lifting. Only now, it feels like all of what had entered into him through air and food and water, through walking the land and feeling its earth, through living and working and thinking, it feels like all of that shows up in every line he draws. 

Ygrom even brings Gilbert some stones one day, crumbly and sticking to everything it touches. It produces the perfect shade for snail tentacles and when it fully dries, it turns shimmery under the right light. 

Gilbert brings to life the memories of Ygrom’s family and by the end of it he feels he knows them almost as well as Ygrom. There is Ygrom’s father, who had ended the war; Ygrom’s aunts Heli and Onit, who‘d had to fight off several knights at once[2] multiple times and succeeded; their cousin Achati, who was truly a giant[3] and had come from far away to help them. Gilbert takes great care drawing their proudest moments according to the family’s oral history. 

When the time for parting comes, it is more emotional than Gilbert had expected. He isn’t only saying goodbye to a new and fascinating friend. He has to disentangle himself from the land as well. The only mercy is that he can do it slowly, walking a short bit every day. The sense of loss he feels is still only bearable because Gilbert knows he is taking part of it with him – and he will be able to share it with Tilly.

It takes Gilbert only two months to get back to his home with the help of the map. There is much jubilation the day he knocks on the doors of those who know him and even his old father seems relieved to see Gilbert again. 

Tilly’s father, on the other hand, is surprised than relieved. Gilbert is invited inside and tells his story. He cannot tell if Tilly’s father is pleased until he calls for her to join them. 

Upon seeing Gilbert, Tilly clearly wants to take him into her arms and Gilbert has to restrain himself from pushing her father out of the way. Her father might not even notice if he did just that because he is going through Gilbert’s illustrations totally transfixed.

That fascination with Gilbert’s illustrations, it turns out, isn’t restricted to Tilly’s father and Tilly herself. It doesn’t take long for the word to spread about the vivid depictions of a lost history. Whoever is granted the pleasure to see the works, or even touch the parchment, is full of praise and awe.

There is talk about the enchanting colours, which some claim actually have been produced by spells. There are scholars losing themselves in debate over whether the term ‘illumination’ is the right one when it comes to the iridescent translucence Gilbert had produced. 

Commissions for work on many a psalter and manuscript follow. Gilbert divides his time between his work and Tilly, who derives immense pleasure from disguising herself from time to time to join in with discussions at the academy about the nature of Gilbert’s paints.

Tilly’s father presents Gilbert with a laboratory as a wedding gift and Gilbert thinks of Ygrom every time he mixes a recipe for a particularly lovely colour. It’s a mixture of wistfulness and feeling thankful, and whichever part wins out tends to find itself reflected in the newly created tinge. 

Gilbert talks about Ygrom with Tilly in ways he could never do with anyone else. He knows the wonder and friendship is evident in his work, but the connection they had formed and the connection he had formed with every crack and song of the woods and stones, the bit of him that still yearns for the fog, those feelings he can only admit to Tilly. 

When Tilly gives birth to a healthy baby, they decide there is only one name they can give him: Ianid, after Ygrom’s father. 

Ianid grows up to be independent like his mother, with a green thumb like his father and diplomatic like his namesake. He also turns out to be an imaginative storyteller and it gives Gilbert great pleasure to capture the pictures his young son’s mind produces. There are not only knights fighting snails, but rabbits fighting snails as well[4].There are monkeys[5] and lions[6] and creatures that seem entirely made-up. But Gilbert and Tilly think they might take their son for an adventure when he is older – and maybe the long-forgotten lands will surprise them once again.

**Author's Note:**

> 11Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, MS 49622, f. 185v. [[illustration](https://i.imgur.com/DfEnr72.jpg) | [source](http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_49622_f185v)] [return to text]
> 
> 22 Angers, BM Ms. impr. Rés. SA 3390, f. 89r. [[illustration](https://i.imgur.com/66Id2Lj.png) | [source](https://bvmm.irht.cnrs.fr/iiif/22391/canvas/canvas-2037025/view)]  
> [return to text]
> 
> 33BLL, Ms. Royal 10 E IV, f. 45r. [[illustration](https://i.imgur.com/Q8Mrr81.png) | [source](http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=32569)][return to text]
> 
> 44 [[illustration](https://i.imgur.com/xCGMRdG.jpg) | source][return to text]
> 
> 55Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, MS 49622, f. 210v ([illustration](https://i.imgur.com/ZjKZUtu.png) | [source](http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_49622_f210v)] [return to text]
> 
> 66Gorleston Psalter, England (Suffolk), 1310-1324, MS 49622, f. 179v ([illustration](https://i.imgur.com/4gWakxm.png) | [source](http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=add_ms_49622_f179v)] [return to text]
> 
> __________________________
> 
> In case you are wondering where the strange names for the snails come from: I lifted them off taxonomic families (Hygromiidae for Ygrom, Humboldtianidae for Ianid, Helicidae for Heli, Achatinidae for Achati, Zonitidae for Onit).
> 
> Wishing you a Happy Yuletide!


End file.
